1954 Practical Bar Management by Eddie Clarke

PRACTICAL BAR MANAGEMENT

In some hotels the problem is solved by divorcing the sales of tobacco from the bar and making them direct from the Front, or Reception, Office. The success of this method, if a client is not to be inconvenienced, will depend on the geographical alignment of Bar and Front Office. Principle of Bar Service This is fully described in other chapters of this book, but certain points may be noted here from a Control point of view. A bar is an important hotel department, and whilst the barman must be held responsible for its management, it is important that he be fully aware of the hotel policy. It is found, on occasions, that the policy of the Management and that of the actual barman have little in common,and the eventual result of this leads to the dissatisfaction of the customers. A full Price List should be plainly visible in each bar and appropriate instructions issued with regard to the bar measures to be used. Care should be taken to see, for example, that replenishment to stocks of glassware conform to the standard previously used. Where a larger glass is put into service it is important to remember that if it is desired to maintain the original profit percentage it may be necessary to increase the price per glass. In any case it is essential that the stocktakers are notified of the change in order that they may adjust their bar charges on the basis of the revised number of measures obtained from the bottle with the new glasses. It is a peculiarity about the role of a stocktaker that only a relatively small part of his tune is spent in stocktaking the clerical work in tracing bar business through the period towards the compilation of the stock return, and the assessment of the eventual result, occupies by far the greater part of his day. Bar stock calculations are generally compiled in two ways. Firstly a comparison is made between the actual revenue and a con sumption of stock calculated at estimated selling, or realization, price. In this method a theoretical sales value, determined by the known capacity of individual bottles as compared with detail of 138 STOCKTAKING